World Building : Africa

Spears

The #1 threat on the continent, and (apart from a couple historical quirks like the Zulu's firearms-acquisition timeline) the reason Africa is shit.

African parasites are nightmare fuel. Guinea worms, filaria, human botflies, Chigoe fleas/jiggers...equipment shortages are a serious problem.

Thats a great idea...Parasites that eat from within. A terribley slow and painful way to die. Healthy today...a zombie or monster tomorrow or next week.
-Bugs n Misquitoes

pastebin.com/PKFJzHfA
>AFRICAN FANTASY: tips, ideas and hooks

imgur.com/a/iHF95
My african images

do they have any sulfur available?

>Pfft. Tropical diseases and predators are nothing to sneeze at.
True. The reason the Scramble for Africa only happened in the 19th century was because Europeans kept dying from malaria before that point, making it impossible to maintain deep gains. It's only when medical science hit a strong point that the African interior opened up.

>gorillas wielding tree trunks
How quickly can they fire, and what happens if they shoot you?

It doesn't have nearly the frigid or harsh weather of more northerly climes. This is literally the terrain humanity evolved in/for.

Spears of the Dawn is also worth checking out, as far as preexisting games with a similar conceit.

Doesn't matter, gorillas will get shot first.

>No paladins
Justice knows no culture.

A Paladin in Africa is just called a Witchdoctor

Ghana, Mali, Ethiopia, Aksum, Songhai, Kush, Punt, Oyo, Zimbabwe, Carthage

except in Africa the weak survive a lot because of international aid.

A lot of communism

I'd try to divide the world into 3, maybe 4, groups/socities the players interact and come in conflict with:
1. The Tribal Society: Patchworks of Tribes and Kingdoms based on family. Would be heavily divided between the "Urbanized" Gold/Trading Kingdoms and rural villages in the jungles. Would be heavily pantheistic with maybe a few shared gods, totems, and ancestor worship. Gods would probably have something to do with the wet/dry seasons and farming.
2. Jungle Society: Mostly Barbarians and savages from the deep jungle. Headhunters and the like. Usally antagonistic towards the Tribal Society because they are taken as slaves and also raid them in retaliation. Most enemies would probably come from here.
3. The Monotheistic Empire: Basically the early Islamic Caliphates. Would be a distant society, but its pressure on the Tribal would be obvious. Warrior-Missionaries sent to convert the savage, goods with religious iconography flowing in from trade routes, and only through them would real metal and iron come from. I'd also have the Empire contrast with Tribal Society as not being as divisive about bloodline/culture, but much more zealous in religion. No culture divides because all are one before The God.
4. The "Prester John" Land: Not sure about this one. It would most likely be a distant land Kingdom struggling against all 3 other societies, but still surviving. It would adhere to a totally alien religion but would not be too unlike the Empire.
I also think I'd allow Paladins but as Warrior-Priests from the Empire. Perhaps to act as as a foreigner but give a more direct link to a distant entity?

>only through them would real metal and iron come from
Why?

Not with bows and spears, they were so feared mainly because they were one of the few armies there with any training and had guns.

The portuguese already had lots of coastal cities all over Africa starting the 15th century, and other nations had some. South Africa was colonized starting in the 17th century.

> deep gains
> African interior
> bothering to read a two sentence post

Coastal cities maintaining trade relations and settled outposts on the coast aren't the same thing as the large scale conquests, empire building and colonization of the 19th century. And if Europeans could have conquered Africa earlier, they would have.

The Cape Colony was as much of a colony as Europeans could sustain until the ability to penetrate deeper into Africa developed. Until we start hitting the 19th century, it was a glorified trading post.

Basically climate wise Africa is a gigantic mess, places that are habitable and provide good crop yield change yearly and most of it isn't sustainable for long term settlement. If people want to know why Egypt is the one great African civilization that's the reason.

>Carthage

You don't know how little of a fuck a hippo gives about spears.

>thinks nothing has changed in Africa since we evolved there

>bow and arrow
>Gustave

That fucker isn't bothered by most bullets anymore.

>carthage

Is on the northern coast of Africa, yes? What's your point?

It's not even the part that's connected to Eurasia aka Egypt.

>This is literally the terrain humanity evolved in
That's why it's full of parasites and diseases.

I don't remember the Nameless King having a rhino for a mount.

>run africa campaign
>players hear rumours about gustave
>think it's a water dragon or some aquatic demon
>was a giant pissed off croc all along

All these ''well nourished African muscle-nigger'' art in this thread is disgusting.

If food is scarse in the setting they should be skinny as fuck and not look like they have been browsing Veeky Forums since the day they were born while their mothers have been breastfeeding them protein shakes.

and npcs in a setting styled after medieval europe should all be malnourished midgets too, I guess?

>No Dahomay
>No Kongo
>No Sokoto Caliphate
>No Bornu
>No Buganda
>No Numidian Afro-Roman kingdoms
>No Asante

Indigenous African states don't get enough love

>No city-states

It's like you don't even Africa

'Why doesn't everyone in this fantasy have a disfiguring skin condition, smell foul and have a fat fetish? MUH IMMERSION!'

Why are denizens of Veeky Forums so obsessed with africa anyway? The only interesting part of it is the mediterranean coast, the rest are just savages who only excelled at being enslaved by muslims and later by christians.

>inb4 muh mali
What an amazing legacy and treasure of information it left behind.

It worked for the greeks and romans. It worked so well, in fact, that they drove lions to extinction in europe.

>He doesn't know jack shit about African history

I'd say go back to /pol/ but I reckon you'd have a hard time finding the place, pleb

>If anyone says anything bad about africa, they're from /pol/
You have to be over 18 to post on this site.

If anyone can't be bothered to do basic fucking research before posting, the only place other than /pol/ they'll find people on their level is /b/.

Attatched pic is actually a really shitty map because it doesn't show HALF the civilizations in Africa that built cities, had political systems as sophisticated as any in Europe, and were relevant in trade the point that people would tell stories about their wealth from Ireland to China.

I attached the wrong pic, disregard me I suck cocks

>Getting this assmad that someone insulted Africa
Maybe it's time to step back from your computer and take a break.

African history, what remains of it is really cool. The thing is Africa is nature on hard mode

Very few central African Kingdoms were able to retain stability because the climate is fuckin' awful for livestock and pre-industrial agriculture. As such the culture is highly varied, unlike our deeply homogenised modern lives

As an example google "African genetic diversity" or "African head shapes", the place really is a power house of "Survival of the fittest".

Its not commonly known that Eastern Africa for instance has only had large populations of humans in it for about 1500 years, this is compared to what 7K years in the near-east

Think of it like this; Eastern Africa was so harsh that it forced a number of crappy baboons onto the plains, forced them to stand on their hind legs, forced them to evolve or die, took this bunch of crappy baboons and evolved a cognitive revolution about 70K years ago.

Rather than thinking about "why Africa is so shit", its probably more interesting to come at it the other way around. What is so special about "The West" that has, in the last 300 years, taken us from being a pretty weak region historically, to arguably masters of the planet

/Rant

I'd create a mini version of Africa which each part based on its regions
In the north is a bunch of cutthroat pirate towns full of political intrigue and swashbuckling adventures

In the west various city states and kingdoms of various creeds, it would have kings, sorcerers, priests, necromancers and paladins all with a distinctly african aesthetic to them

In the east an ancient holy kingdom led by an emperor, it would would be a shell of its former self but still mighty enough to fight off the upstart tribes trying to rise against it

In the south a vast inhospitable wilderness full of deadly creatures where only a handful of hardened tribes and a few glory seeking hunters tread

>Not adressing the argument
>Muh butt mad

So you were the retard all along!

>What is so special about "The West" that has, in the last 300 years, taken us from being a pretty weak region historically, to arguably masters of the planet
Many people forget that the west's dominance is something so recent. They take it for granted and think it was always this way in full ignorance of the vast majority of human history where it wasnt.
I think it distords a lot of people's view on other cultures and history in general

The really weird bit is that folk think "The West" *cough* Europe *Cough* was powerful in The Age of Discover.

Truth was our economic output as a region was probably well below Asia and the Near-East. The Chinese for instance had far more and far bigger ship and actually sent them to Africa well before whiteys did.

I recently read an argument that Europe essentially won because:
1) It accepted it didn't know things unlike most dictatorships at the time and could thus learn
2) Tomorrow could be better than today, allowing for capital to be raised against profits tomorrow (borrowing with interest)
3) The relationship between science, capitalism and Empire

Book worth reading, even if it does get a bit preachy in parts: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind ISBN-10: 1846558239

No, europeans won because constant warfare, shitty cold weather and diseases made them have to adapt to survive while China and the middle east had fairer weather and much better geographical location while africa is brimming with resources (which the natives barely touched). Similarly, the desert shithole that the mongols lived in made them smart and sharp as well, which led to them creating the largest empire on land.

>A very harsh land, only the strong survive
>strong

Nah man, black people are FAST.
Only the FAST survive.

The last few worlds fastest distance runners were black.
The last few worlds strongest man winners were white.

Get your facts straight.

You could probably make an argument that internal conflict within Europe forced people to strive for colonies. For instance, the English pinching Spanish colonies off of Spain to stop their gold income, the English commissioning "The beagle" to explore the Polynesian triangle to stay ahead of the French and Portuguese...

But the harsh environment claim is a bit thin and even a bit self aggrandising. You puncture it yourself. If a homeland being harsh was a key factor then why haven't Eskimos, Norwegians and Congolese gone on to dominate the Earth.

As with most things it'll be a combination of factors, timing and luck. What it won't be is your obvious and innate superiority over those "Darkies"

Norwegians colonized Iceland, Greenland, parts of Ireland, Scotland and England and discovered Canada.

You'd have done better if you argued that Roman-era Germany was settled by Nordic peoples

Not sure what your point is, and no it wasn't. Germans were driven out of Denmark by proto-danes and they assimilated the southward celts.

>Chigoe fleas
Welp there goes my lunch.

>GREAT
>ZIMBABWE
>EMPIRE

Africans did invent the bow and arrow. Most of Africa was solidly iron age with a lack of good materials and no desire to build giant monuments.

Plus there was that one tribe that skipped iron and somehow invented Carbon Steel

The reason Africa never grouped up to make Black Rome or the like is because the diseases there, that evolved alongside humanity and thus are about 90% more effective than what you get in Europe, pretty much instawiped every tribe that got too big.

>3. The Monotheistic Empire: Basically the early Islamic Caliphates. Would be a distant society, but its pressure on the Tribal would be obvious. Warrior-Missionaries sent to convert the savage, goods with religious iconography flowing in from trade routes, and only through them would real metal and iron come from.

But that's fucking wrong, the Bantu spread iron working across the entire fucking continent. Those "tribal societies" made their own metal tipped spears and swords, and apparently some Haya fucks made carbon steel.

Are you trying to tell me that diseases built up resistances against their human bodies building resistances against them?

Because otherwise, bacteria was pretty fucking devastating in the damp and cold enviornment of Europe, too, and disease breakouts destroyed several kingdoms and both roman empires in recorded european history.

That's how evolution works yes

iirc there's some lizard and snake where one builds stronger poisons to paralyze it's prey and the other builds stronger resistance over millennia. the poison is many tens of thousands times stronger than it would need to be to kill anything else and the resistance is specifically for that predators poison

idr tho I saw this on tv a decade ago.

Anyway, anything that evolved in similar timeframe to humans and interacts with us on any level, such as disease, is going to be evolving to capitalize off of us. African parasides and diseases are brutal to humans because they've evolved to prey on humans

I'd make it a modern-day campaign

...

The blacks were more resistant to diseases than whites, and whites still managed to conquer all of North Africa in the Roman era, and all of Africa in the colonial era.

Blacks are just so differently-intelligent that they would find dead monkies (bush meat) lying on the ground dead from ebola and chop them up and serve them to the entire tribe.

>The blacks were more resistant to diseases than whites
That is, tropical diseases native to where they live

All my knowledge of Africa comes from reading Tarzan. I could learn more and make it more accurate, but I like my perception the way it is.

Africa pretty much just exists to scratch the "great white hunter" itch, imo.

>bantu states
>never develop a fucking writing script
>had political systems as sophisticated as any in Europe

>That fucking border gore

get some hellboy strange places in there,some Kirikou as well.
All in all it depends on what part of Africa it takes place in.

If you take the northern coasts it could be quite the Disney Aladin adventure with excursions up north to europe or the middle east.
then again you could start in the same position and head south dungeon delving deep into the Pre-Sand remnants of the Saharan civilizations for some classic Conan or perhaps more G.I. Gurdijeff type games.

The Congo is the location for some of straight up Lovecraftian nonsense
Madagascar, Zanzibar, Socotra(we claim it for Africa) and all other islands lend themselves for old hollywood type settings; evil vulcano cults or sneaky Venusians landing on earth.

As for the great Savannas I refer to the top of this post.
Long tracks across the vast plains with plenty sights to see as your group moves from humble village to humble village stacked with lore and extremly African loot.
Most fantasy here is spiritual and quite similar in delivery to the little folk of Ireland.

but honestly do whatever

>TIL the Bantu States had no writing system.

>But still had a functioning government And bureaucracy.

Fucking humans,how do they work?

>whites are differently intelligenced than blacks

It's weird to believe that people still believe a meme created in the 1700s by people who thought that skull shape dictated mental ability.

What's weirder is that there is still people that believe blacks are the same as any other race on the planet. You have all this technology at the tip of your hands and you are still this ignorant, user? Like, I can tell right away you you have never actually researching what you are talking about, and just perpetuate a modern meme.

You have to be considering some very cherrypicked evidence to believe that blacks are so incredibly different from literally every other human phenotype.

Actual african here. I've toyed with the idea of a setting where wonder children can be a commonplace and better explained phenomena. You see all over African folklore how the hero is usually a small child on a quest to defeat or avenge their father. What if there was a reason for these miraculous children being born? And what if their powers vanished when they hit puberty?

Also, you may or may not know that we believed in totem spirit ancestors. And that due to this each clan can project their soul into a supernatural beast form corresponding to their totem ancestor.

C'mon, help me out here.

About 1/3 of black africa was composed of completely autonomous villages governed by elders and chiefs

Another 1/3 was made up of tribal kingdoms and complex chiefdoms

The last 1/3 were urbanized kingdoms/imperial states

The rainforests were generally thinly populated compared to the open grasslands

I liked the idea of the great jungle being the home of most evil forces. Africans hate and fear the jungle, and historically nearly every tribe within the Congo basin was cannibalistic on some level except for the Kongo people themselves as an example. It's a goldmine for guilt free enemies to purge.

That pic irks me

Mmoatia is not a fairy, it's a hairy dwarf who happens to live in the woods and has magical powers